But if we are aware of the act of twirling the Thaumatrope as a form of pro-
duction, we are also aware that it produces only an ephemeral image that
vanishes as soon as the turning stops. While the implication of Paris’s Cartesian
discourse is that the Thaumatrope should make us aware of the feeble and de-
ceptive aspect of our senses, I wonder if the imagery of the discs, their often
irreverent sense of humor and fantasy encourages such sober disillusionment. I
want to stress the ludic and aesthetic dimension of the toy, the delight that
comes from playing with oneself and one’s perception. Why, in fact, shouldn’t
this ability to see the superimposed image be viewed as a faculty, an ability,
rather than a defect? I experience the production of this virtual image as extend-
ing my conception of vision rather than experiencing some sort of failure to
maintain the distinction between the two images. After all, this is a toy, a device
to give pleasure, not cause frustration. We certainly feel as we twist the thread
of the Thaumatrope and watch the image it produces that we are escaping the
ordinary, that we are seeing in a different manner; we glimpse a virtual world.
Although the superimposed image may not necessarily produce an imageof
motion, it is an imagein motionand therein lies its uniqueness. What it does not
resemble is the fixed and static image that constitutes the norm of pictorial ex-
pression (a norm, I believe, we could claim that the art of picture-making also
constantly challenges and re-conceives). To claim that the Thaumatrope-pro-
duced image does not exist or exists simply as an illusion, reveals a prejudice
towards perception as a static process, veracity as something viewable only
from a fixed and stable perspective, vision understood as a still picture. I am
claiming that the moving image fascinates partly because of its constant im-
pulse to exceed what is already known and already grasped, in favor of mobile
possibilities.
Wheels of Life: Flickering Moving Images
The optical devices that succeeded the Thaumatrope produced not just super-
imposed virtual images, but images that moved, using revolving wheels or
drums with slots or indentations through which the viewer peered. The aper-
ture provided by the viewing slot not only turns what would otherwise be a
continuous blur into a stable visible image, but also inscribes the viewer into
the apparatus, setting a place and means for observation and controlling it with
precision. The breakdown of a continuous movement into a series of flashes or
flickers–basically the creation of shutter effect–was essential for the produc-
tion of motion in nearly all cinematic devices to come. As Austrian scientist
Simon Stampfer explained its function in his stroboscopic disc in,“the
34 Tom Gunning